The politics of disconnection on social media:A systematic review of politically motivated unfriending

Recent years have seen a surging scholarly interest in disconnective political behaviors on social media, commonly termed “politically motivated unfriending”. This study presents a systematic review of 28 articles (34 studies) on this topic. Through content analysis, it provides a robust synthesis of the research trend, contexts and focuses, the scale or prevalence of politically motivated unfriending, and its antecedents and consequences. Through inductive thematic coding, it identifies three recurring themes with regard to how politically motivated unfriending is understood and conceptualized—selective avoidance under the normative framework of the public sphere, self-care following the norm of personal spaces, and a means towards safe spaces within the social structure of unequal power differentials. We highlight the importance to examine political implications of social media through the lens of disconnectivity, discuss the democratic paradox of disconnective political behaviors, and offer recommendations for future researc